No one likes getting a speeding ticket, present company included, but the speeding ticket does hold a purpose. Acting as a behavior modifier to increase conformity with speed limits, which are designed to improve safety for pedestrians, passenger traffic and commercial traffic. But is all speeding the same? Is a driver going 65 in a 55 on the Interstate, the same as a driver going 65 on a 55 mph winding country road? While they are both speeding by just 10 MPH, the simple answer is no.

Last week we discussed the difference between controlled access and non-controlled access roads, which directly relates to issue. Certain roads have features that improve the safety of drivers, as a refresher, this can include a lack of traffic signals, intersections, property access and at-grade crossings with other transportation corridors. In layman's terms, on a controlled access road you don't need to worry about grandma forgetting to look both ways as she pulls into the road from her driveway. This allows drivers to travel at higher speeds with less risk of needing to make a sudden uncontrolled action.

These safety features are not present on your local city streets, leading to the lower speed limits. A number of variables are taken into account when setting the speed limit for these roads, including but not limited to, the number of intersections and property access, road width, and pedestrian crossings. All of these additional variables require drivers to be able to react faster and to more unpredictable events then when driving on controlled access freeways. Therefore, speeding here has a greater effect than speeding on a freeway.

Perhaps one day speeding tickets will reflect the underlying risk level of the road in question and and not simply the speed limit differential.

Is all speeding the same? No, we think that context matters.

This entry was posted on March 4th, 2013 by jhubbard and is filed under Recent News & Updates.